Edwards Isn’t Southern Enough

You gotta hand it to the Republicans. They’ve got a pretty badass political machine. Within minutes of the Kerry-Edwards announcement, they had KerryPicksEdwards.com redirecting to their anti-Edwards page. For the most part, it’s pretty predictable stuff, but the “Edwards Rural Populist Message ? Just Another Gimmick?” section has me in stitches. My favorite part :

Edwards Claims ?Natural Connection? With Rural People, But Flunked Funk?s Rural Q&A. (Matt Bai, ?Nascar-Lovin,? The New York Times, 9/15/02; Tim Funk, ?Q&A With John Edwards,? The Charlotte Observer, 5/26/03)

  • Edwards Has ?Never Done Any Serious Farming.?
  • Edwards Doesn?t Follow Weekly NASCAR Races, Adds He ?Doesn?t Follow Anything Except Politicking.?
  • Edwards Hasn?t Hunted Or Fished ?In Years.?
  • Edwards Has ?In The Past Been A Country Music Fan.?

    • That sonofabitch doesn’t conform to southern stereotypes?! How dare he! If he doesn’t listen to Toby Keith, watch every NASCAR race, and regularly engage in hard labor on his farm, then that Yankee can kiss my ass. After all, I’m sure Bush wowuld pass the “Rural Q&A” with flying colors.

    Also worth noting is the last section titled “Edwards Stated Saddam Had Weapons Of Mass Destruction And Was Nuclear Threat”, or as I like to call it “Edwards Made The Mistake of Trusting Bush and Cheney”. Apparently, supprting the war is now a liability for Republicans too. Is the GOP really crazy enough to think this is going to convince voters that Bush is a better choice?


    posted by greg on July 6, 2004 @ 5:40 pm

    8 comments

    1. Remember, the people that buy this argument are the same people who say Bush is much more trustworthy than Kerry because Kerry is a flip-flopping liberal where as Bush is the firm-minded compassionate conservative. In their mind Bush can do no wrong regardless of how many lies he gets caught up in. The people actually need to see that lies themselves in front of their face (like in F-9/11) in order to believe them. If it is on the news or in the papers, then it is just liberal bias and ‘opinion’ according to the Spin Doctors of FoxNews and the White House…..Remember, Fox claims to be fair and balanced, so why would people who do not question their government believe otherwise?

      Remember that the mainstream media pretty much gave W a pass since he took office. First it was his 100-day honeymoon, then his monthlong vacation in August, 2001, then after 9/11 the were too afraid to confront him. Then he was the “War President”. There are no excuses anymore, but if someone confronts him on something, they are labeled a traitor, an unpatriotic, America-hater. Middle America doesn’t like those types of people, and don’t question it when it comes from the mouths of their leaders. Perhaps being a good ol boy, Edwards will be able to show them the light, but I doubt that he will be able to convince the vast majority of them. As long as he convinces enough for Kerry to have 270 electoral votes, that’s all I care about.

      Comment by mbf1978 — July 7, 2004 @ 8:12 am

    2. or as I like to call it “Edwards Made The Mistake of Trusting Bush and Cheney”

      stop. please, greg, just stop. i’ve been reading your blog for well over a year now and i am fully convinced you are too smart for that bullshit. edwards did not believe bush. your blog and every other source of news or analysis in the free world was debunking all of bush’s claims before march 13 2003. kerry, gep, finestien, edwards, they knew what was up, but they played the part of patriotic lawmaker and didnt rock the boat. or they were incredibly ignorant. either way, the democratic ticket, as attractive as edwards may make it, doesnt have a goddamn leg to stand on on this issue.

      Comment by josh — July 7, 2004 @ 8:26 am

    3. Unfortunately, Josh kind of has a point. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of highly credibly people calling the Bushies out for their war mongering lies pretty much from the moment the Focus switched from Afganistan to Iraq, and the Deomcratic party, in one of the most cowardly, and mistaken, actions ever chose to avoid dealing with them. perhaps in favor of some fake ass attempt to capture the “patriot” vote, whatever that means, or perhaps because the entire country smoked some incredibly potent crack right after 911. Whatever the case, it was wrong and a bad, bad mistake.

      Hell, they didn’t have to believe the criticism, (though honestly, couldn’t they aknowledge now that Every Goddamned thing we said would happen has, in fact, fucking happened?). But to bend over and give Bush whatever he wanted, including the worst assault on American Liberties since the Palmer Raids is sickening. One of the reasons I supported Howard Dean even though I liked Edwards economic politics better (he’s one of the only Dems willing to almost-accuse Bush of waging class war against the poor and midle class), is that Dean was the only Dem, when it mattered, who called out Bush for leading us into a bullshit, unneccesary, lies based war.

      While I happen to think Kerry-Edwards is a good ticket, and that they’re both good dems, the entire party is stained for the way they handed the country over to Bushco after the sElection. Edwards has a whole lot to reccomend him, but unfortunately, his being among the initial enablers of this little warm up to WWIII isn’t among them.

      Then again, perhaps if you’d said “stupid enough to trust Terry Mcauliffe”, the craven, simpering sycophant at the heart of every mistake the Dems have made for the last few years, you might have a point. He’s the one, after all, from which the whole Concede-To-Bush-On-Foreign_Affairs idiocy sprang. The first act in the Kerry administration ought to be firing that shithead and putting someone with the balls to be a fucking liberal in charge.

      However, I differ with Josh in this way: I don’t give a damn what I think, I only give a damn what they’ll say now. We know they’re the right ticket to take Bush out of office, we know Edwards knows what he’s talking about when it comes to economic issues, and we know Kerry would instantly be well liked and popular amongst our actual, Non-Dictatorship allies. So fuck it, I’m not going to get tripped up on this issue. If bush says “you supported me”, they should say “We supported America, and you seem to have forgotten that’s who you serve”, or something similar, frequently, that’s good enough for me, at least until after the election.

      Comment by The Taking It With A Grain of Salt Ross Lincoln — July 7, 2004 @ 9:19 am

    4. i agree, ross. i didnt see it that way, but the truth is they didnt believe bush, they followed terry’s lead. and getting rid of him would be a capital idea. unfortunatly, for all the good edwards brings to the table, he is also the coziest and closest to the dnc and mcauliffe.

      Comment by josh — July 7, 2004 @ 11:26 am

    5. Well, my original point was that it’s ridiculous for the Republicans to smear Edwards for following Bush’s lead. Yeah, Kerry, Edwards, and most of the Dems were spineless for trying to get the Iraq war resolution out of the way prior to the 2002 elections, but in their defense, (1) almost everybody believed the Saddam actually had WMD’s and (2) the Democrats were stupid enough to believe that Bush would exhaust all his options via the U.N. weapons inspection process before blowing things up. While the Democrats have been justly vilified for giving Bush a permission slip, the war wouldn’t have happened if Bush hadn’t had such a big boner for destruction that he kicked out Hans Blix and issued Saddam that 48 hour ultimatum.

      Comment by greg — July 7, 2004 @ 11:53 am

    6. You make an excellent point.

      Stereotypes R Us.

      KPE – another site to mock mercilessly

      Comment by Andrew | BB — July 7, 2004 @ 7:21 pm

    7. http://www.dolphinsdock.com/blog/archives/07-01-20

      Of course the instant Kerry announced Edwards as his running mate, the GOP attack machine was in full force. The Talent Show points out that GOP owns the domain “KerryPicksEdwards.com” and has redirected it to a page filled it with reasons not to vot…

      Trackback by Where the Dolphins Play — July 7, 2004 @ 9:57 pm

    8. What a crock – Kerry will be the death of us if he is elected, and Edwards is just a front to try to gain votes and nothing else as far as Kerry is concerned.

      Comment by Karen — July 13, 2004 @ 12:22 pm

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